approved banana

approved banana
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

in the absence of any proper blogging (loads to catch up on, but its all about the Micro-blogging at the moment...) i thought i'd copy and paste a wee silly poem that McParty did write about paintMonkey, just to fill the empty space.


An Ode to Paintmonkey

Oh Paintmonkey you silly sod
you elbowed me, gave me the nod
to get me off my arse to blog.




so there you go.
i have added a link to Mcparty's blog with all the other links... but its on probabtion... ;-P

Ahh. Hello again. How have you been? [Insert response here]. Good, good. That’s great... Me? Ah now, well you see…

 

Birthday Week. Yes, it is.

Having had a lovely slobbing weekend with Moo and pretending to do some work on Monday, I took Tuesday and Wednesday off work to allow for sleeping-in, headaches and birthday cuddles, which in hind-sight was a good idea. On my actual birthday, we (tankGirl and I) went out to Lure Bar for some drinks with some of my favourite people, had a laugh and was amazed by the science fiction bathrooms in there. Lure has now been given the designation of Pub#2, well done them for that.

Wednesday was all about aimless wondering around Knaresborough Market and Harrogate shops, followed by a trip to cinema to see Iron Man (twitter: Done cinema. Iron Man would be trite rubbish without Robert Downey Jnr's coked-up confident delivery. 5/10 - the Iron Man cgi is rather cool 08:38 PM May 21, 2008). I’ll buy it on DVD to go with the others, but I probably wont watch it again.

Thursday was back to work, where again, like today, I pretended to work by having appropriate software windows open on the screen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not slacking, I could do a whole day’s work in a couple of hours if I drank two cups of coffee back to back. But sometimes [shuffles papers on desk, moving them from one pile to another] it is just as well to appear to be busy rather than actually being busy. This is the NHS afterall and we’re all a little bit Bank Holiday Weekend Excitable today anyway, two of us are even wearing sunglasses unnecessarily.

 

It’s now Friday. Tonight is dinner with TankGirl, Eddie and Laynie (The First Life Couple) which I’m looking forward to, tomorrow we are gate crashing Mr & Mrs Bongo’s wedding reception and Sunday is further fun with the visiting Vapour Trail…

 

I was pondering a rant about something silly last night, a pleasant rant (don’t think ‘rant’ is the right word) about how the scenery changes as we walk on down the path… then at about 2300hrs Dragondrop micro-blogged; “Listening to radio 7, thinking about the lovely twists and turns life puts before us” and I realised he had said all I needed to in that one line. Judging by the debriefing I got from TankGirl’s first visit to The Combine Harvester Appreciation Society (or W.A.G.s Night as I called it), it seems the Thornborough Wedding/Betraothal thing is all moving up a gear now…its all sounds very exciting. I really must either convince P to come bringing Moo or bring Moo myself. Can’t do it without my Moo.

 

 

 

The future is bright, the future is beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you world.

She is everything I need,
She is living guarentee.
She's what I mean when I say
Everything's alright.

She got diamonds, She got pearls,
She got wisdom
And this girl is all I need
to know Everything is alright.

And I need to know that everything is alright.

market (reloaded)

market
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

terrible. its a terrible state of affairs, i tell you.
I seem to have lost the ability to Blog. I am even having to recycle old images to post on the blog to blog the fact tat i've lost my blogging mojo somewhere between the sheets of my nest and my ashtray.

[tut] it is terrible.

FAIL.

The past week in brief:
hmm... rollercoaster ride last week was.

the previously recinded eviction notice was reactivated by stealth two days before the notice was up...i had been receiving contradictory information from the two who head up the property management company. It boils down to this, she likes me, he doesn't.
A mild but intense state of panic fell on me as i realised 'she' had gone on holiday and that 'he' was quite keen to do something decisive. But thanks to the marvellousness and quick thinking of TankGirl and a sold painting the situation has been (temporarily) sorted. Chambers is still Chambers...I think the tide is coming in on this particular Epac-island though.

the rest of last week was of a similar vein, conflicts of interest and resolutions, all taking the steam and/or impact out of each other. The relief and lifted wieght of one situation's (part) conclusion was quickly replaced by another, be it the insecurity of not knowing what job i'll be doing next or whether i would go home to find the contents of chambers strewn across the pavement, to worrying about how Moo and TankGirl will get on.... or maybe i'm worried about how i will get on with being in the middle of that... grr mumble moan.

its my birthday tomorrow. 37. thats what all this is about . its all normal life-crap magnified by the shaving mirror of my birthday looming ahead of me.
thirty seven.... say it with me... thirty seven.
hmm. 23 years til i'm 60.

right, anyway... its all good really, the weekend was 'a steady away' with moo. We played nintendo and watched dvds in our pygamas on saturday and went to Dragondrop Centraal for lunch on Sunday with tankGirl. I won a game of BockGammon. yay. i rule.
I've taken tuesday and wednesday off work this week to celebrate my birthday (and to avoid buying everyone in the office cakes - a very silly tradition that i cant afford), i'm hoping to get some time in at Shed (The) and/or some fun times.




The gap has been minded, the next stop is...

[update]: My new year's wishes came true. Not necessarily all represented here.

where you all are

ah, yes. i can see you too.

Cloud Numbers: Weasels, chocolate and green.

"stupidly happy" by xtc plays from out of tankgirl's playlist on my pc, the late sunday afternoon sun floods through the window of Chambers, the sky is the same colour as TankGirl's new hair, well kinda. Couldn't be happier. Couldn't feel more right than it does.

Weekend has been a bit of this and that really. To First Life HQ on Friday to catch up with things and play 'pooter games, which was nice. Saturday; was meant to meet eddie for a coffee in Café Rouge, but then he snapped/tore his tendon running across a road on his way to meet us. When I found him he was sitting beside the road clutching his ankle, clearly in pain but being ignored by the throngs of pedestrians walking by. People can be such knobs. His description of a loud 'popping noise' sent queasy shivers down my skin. Emergency evac proceedures followed, including eddie allowing me drive his little yellow car (punch) for the first time. His ankle is now in a cast after a trip to Casualty.
By the time I rejoined TankGirl in Café Rouge, my bucket of capuccino had gone cold and she had been joined by her friend Richard, who I was meeting for the first time, and our friend Nick who had just ordered a bottle of champagne to go with the punnet of strawberres he'd brought. Four bottles of wine and fun later, we carried and left a broken Nick asleep on the grass outside the blues, and tankGirl and I planned our futures togther. Did I tell you we're getting married? Ah yes.
Doctor who, a power nap and a litre of fruit juice and we were sitting around a fire-bin (with legaliser on standby) at dragondrop centraal for a summer rehearsal of the night shift. Rehearsals went well.

And a perfect sunday today. Long lay-in, tea and the sunday times, sunshine, river. Good friends. Good times. Ah.

Well that's all very nice innit?

I've had a buzz in my head for the last couple of days, like I can feel a storm coming. I hope its nothing but there is an impending sense of dread/doom about something, someone (maybe), somewhere.

Is the fan on? Check. Big bag of shit ready to throw? Check.
Brace for impact...

Its either these damn temporal ear lobes of mine or...or...I dunno, my own humouring and pandering to my inner pessimist. Things are good, therefore they will soon be bad again...I don't want to believe that.

Tankgirl has gone for a powernap now, billy holiday plays from the playlist as the sun slowly lowers itself from the sky.

I'm gonna have a bifta and do some micro blogging. Paint_monkey is; sitting. paintMonkey is standing. paintMonkey is inhaling and exhaling as he walks to the sink... ;)

Today's cloud number is number nine.

InnrLands daydream.

InnrLands daydream_lo
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

A Banana Cannot Answer the Phone...

A Banana cannot answer a phone
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

ah, right then Slack,

I hear, i am told, the grapevine did say,
a word is required to start a new day.

A banana cannot answer the phone,
The fish will not juggle with this dry stone.

I cannot undo what has been done.
This takes two minutes, my distance is run.

Those words i did write, it's clear they hurt,
[but] i was an Ernie and you was a Bert...

Third parties will confuse, fog and deplete.
The truth is, you know; we really should meet.

No 'ifs' and/or 'buts', no words to borrow,

This decision, i hope, will flavour tomorrow.

Right. I will have to use the word 'lorry',
as that, old friend, is what rhymes with Sorry.



SunDial.

train journey IMAGINE SKY (reloaded)

train journey IMAGINE SKY
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

ah yes, the image is nearly four years old now, look how young Moo is and that shirt of mine is a bit tighter now.... anyway that isn't the point of this quick blog...Twitter is.

Dragondrop has introduced me to something which will no doubt become addictive (along with flickr and this blog which are also both his fault).

www.Twitter.com is a thing some of us are trying out; micro-blogging, updating location and doings on a minute by minute basis if thats your thing. the idea is a mobile/txt/InstantMessaging/blog thing, so that if you're on the move others can follow what and where and who you're doing. random thoughts, locations and activities all blogged in the moment. could be interesting.
gonna try it for a month and see if it fits.
i'm going by the username paint_monkey and my particular page is www.twitter.com/paint_monkey if anyone want s to join in and get involved...

[silly bit of blog removed]

so yeah, there you go...i was right all along and that proves it. ;)


please stand clear of the doors. mind the gap.

Tantric Comedy Sex, or, Check out my Big Red Rubber Band Ball.

Ah now. Impressive stuff, i'm sure you'd agree.

tankGirl's shoulders turned the same pink as the pink champagne we drank.

sparkle

sparkle
Originally uploaded by paintMonkey

at some point i will, no doubt, stop being so gooey about my sidekick, tankGirl, and get back to whining on about stuff and brooding ...but for now, my focus is 'she rocks my world'.

When not otherwise distracted...

It was as I was walking Moo to tap dancing lessons on Saturday morning, that my sister rang to tell me she thought that we had maybe lost my mother in Katmandhu.
Well misplaced rather than 'lost'.
She had been due back Thursday morning, by my sister's reckoning, from a holiday in Nepal with the specialist 'over-fifties' adventure travel agent. Two and a half days later and neither our mother's nor david's (step-father and/or husband) phones were being answered, the only lead; a half garbled txt msg that had been received from our mother earlier in the week.
Ah. Yes indeed. All the elements for an adventure surely. A missing person, a rugged, exotic location and a clue.

I sprang into action. I rang Eddie and asked him to get me the phone number for the Embassy in Katmandhu, stat. I rang my sister and asked her to get phone numbr for said 'over fifties' adventure travel agent...

Then I went for a coffee with B. We drank tea.

By the time the tap lesson had finished and B ad I had eaten cake, any dreams I may have had of being parachuted into Nepal, wearing my mission profile specific utility belt, on some damn foolish crusade to resue my mother from some sort of Temple Of Doom, had evaporated. My slightly bemused mother rang me to hand herself in. After 24 hours travelling, she had just listened to half a dozen voicemails and answer phone messages, all increasingly concerned and anxious about her lack of being where she should've been, which greeted her as she arrived home (on schedule) Saturday afternoon.
The whole thing was kind of amusing, I wasn't aware she was abroad in the first place, and quite nice, its been weeks since I had spoken to either my sister or my mother. Been distracted by tankGirl you see. Nice to know that a real or imagined crisis can pull a family together if needs be.

Saturday night Eddie came over with his Wii. We giggled, we played MarioKart til 4am*, we forgot to eat.

Sunday, moo and I slobbed, played wii, invited tankGirl over for dinner again (at Moo's suggestion) and watched Doctor Who.
It went well, I thought.

Tomorrow is bank holiday monday.
Standby for more exciting updates.
Stand clear of the doors as they are closing.

*I say 'played MarioKart', what I mean is: I demonstrated to Eddie how it should be played, by whupin (oh yes, a whupin) his ass, time and time again.

[notes from the editor]

On the left hand side
you'll see a game in play,
on the right hand side;
a story being told.